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Saturday, May 31, 2014

Article Assignment #4What to do when water runs out

Craig Macartney

Rating: ***

Imagine
if you went out on a camping trip without enough water and didn’t know where the
closest body of water is. What would you do?

This article talks about the
variety of methods that you are able to collect water without having to find a
body of water. All these methods are be able to be performed with little to
none equipment in the middle of the woods or while you are enjoying your hike
through the forest. The four methods are solar stills, plastic bags, mobile
plastic bags and dew collection. Solar stills would be the most complicated of
the four but does give you the most water. By digging a trench 1 meter wide by
1 meter deep, you are able to place your container in the bottom of the trench,
place a plastic sheet over top of the hole and let the small space condense the
water molecules and evaporate into your container. The second is plastic bags
and mobile plastic bags. It is essentially the same thing except one is done
stationary and one is done on the move. You take a bunch of no poisonous leaves
and place them into a bag then tie the bag. One the bag is placed in the sun,
it will evaporate the condensed water from the leaves and onto the bag every
few hours or so you should have a sustainable amount of water to drink. And
lastly dew collection. Dew collection can be done with clothes or a cloth. When
temperatures drop overnight, the grass in the outdoors collects a substantial amount
of dew which is already purified water. Take your clothes and soak up as much
water as possible then suck out as much moisture as possible. Repeat this process
until satisfied with the amount of water taken in. All of these methods are
very self-sufficient and very simple.

This article showed me that if
one day I do run out of water not knowing where the next big water source is
while hiking, I will know how to find water quickly and efficiently. This is
such an important thing to know because water is key to our survival. This has
made me think about all the people that don’t know about these techniques and
all the people that encounter these situations not knowing what to do and, if
only they read a bit more they would know what to do and potentially save their
own lives as well as others. I learnt about 4 unique (well more like 3) ways to
accumulate substantial amounts of water very efficiently without having to be
near a big water supply. This article is a true inspiration for my next
hiking/camping trip, this will be vital to my safety if I will not be able to
locate a body of water or even a small stream. This will make me now change my behavior
in a sense that I will be more relaxed knowing that I will potentially never
run out of water having me not worry of about dehydration and possible death of
because of dehydration.

In conclusion, water
is the most important element to our survival and now having these unique
techniques to collect water, our survival rates have strongly shot through the
roof without a question. I hope this article not only educates me but as well
as everyone in the outdoor community.